The Role of Anchor Beliefs in Storytelling

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There's this idea I've been working on that I call anchor beliefs. An anchor belief the way I define it is something that you are totally unwilling to stop believing or that you sort of implicitly know the cost of not believing it is too high to be willing to stop. And therefore, when you have one of these beliefs, you must warp all evidence and data and information you get to keep that belief being true. So you can't give up that belief by definition, so you get evidence that's wrong, you have to find some other way to interpret that evidence. This can create a lot of strange ripples in people's belief systems.

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Is our adoption of beliefs primarily motivated by wanting to be the heroes of our own stories? Why do we have such a hard time understanding the stories other people are telling about themselves and the world? How can we reduce political polarization? How plausible are the various theories (conspiracy or otherwise) around the origins of COVID? Why don't the EA, Rationalist, and related communities focus more on transforming political landscapes? Free speech is incredibly important, of course; but does absolute free speech tip the scales in favor of misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda? Has the internet fundamentally changed the way we converse with each other, or has it merely scaled up and accelerated those conversations while preserving their original characteristics? Is there ultimately a way to land on a principled answer around free speech and censorship? Does a globally optimum free speech policy even exist, or are we stuck picking from a lineup of equally unsavory options?

Cate Hall is a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Alvea, a newly clinical stage EA biotech company. She is also the co-founder and President of Juniper Ventures, a biosecurity and pandemic preparedness foundry. She is a former Supreme Court litigator and former no. 1 female poker player in the world. She tweets at @catehall.

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